July 2013 Babies

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Ferber method...is it cruel?

kristenleigh0330 wrote:

So we obviously waited longer than most to start sleep training and last night was our first night. It was awful. I felt so mean, even though we went in to reassure her I still couldn't help but feel like I was an awful mother for letting her cry. If I had it my way I would cosleep until she was a year but dh has been sleeping on the couch and is tired of it. So those of you who have done this, I could just use some words of encouragement to continue. Had it helped your los? Was it worth it?

@kristenleigh0330 I haven't used a Ferber/CIO method and probably won't; it just doesn't suit my parenting style. But I know some other families for whom it's worked wonders. No, it is not cruel. Cruelty is starving or beating a child. Cruelty is never expressing love to a child. There are many awful things a parent can do to a child, but allowing a him or her to cry a bit in a safe crib in a warm house, in an effort to improve sleep habits, is not at all cruel. Try not to guilt yourself (easier said than done, I know!) Good luck- I wish you quick sleep training and lots of restful nights to come!

We're doing it too, for just over a week. I'm actually more tired than before we started (he started every night in his own room and would come into out bed between 12 and 1). I feel like it's cruel during the crying but am relieved when he falls asleep in his own bed and we have our bed to ourselves (but I miss him at the same time, confusing). He still smiles at us in the morning, so he either doesn't remember it or doesn't mind it... It's for the best in the long run, just keep the end goal in mind. GL.

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hmc1101

@SurpriseMama2013 I love when women have different parenting styles and can still be so supportive of each other. I really enjoyed your post. I too cosleep and have started to think about if/when/what style to get him in his crib. its a tough choice to make! made harder by the fact that I love sleeping with him. but he is still nursing a lot and my dr said it would stop if he was not in our bed. is he even right?!?

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SarahJohn16

It was very successful for us! Took about 4 really rough nights, but now we love it and she sleeps through the night. I remember going in to soothe at 1,2, and 5 minutes and then just bawling after coming out of her room at the 10 minute mark. It's hard mama, you're doing great though!

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reginaroset

Haha... Fair warning, this will be suuuuuuuuuuuper long...!

My husband and I Ferberized our, at the time, 7 month old and it has worked wonders for us. Without fail, Liam always woke up every single night at some point between 3am - 5am to eat, no matter what time or how much he ate before he went to bed. He could have had 8oz at 12am and still would wake up crying at 3am to eat, it was just habitual for him. We wanted him to sleep through the night since we both wake up at 5:45AM for work and having him wake up in the middle of the night for a feeding was rough (you're in that awkward time after he finishes eating, where it's like... well it's 4:45. Should I go back to sleep or just stay up, suck it up, and just get ready for work? Needless to say, I always fell back asleep (“just 5 more minutes” *yawn) and ended up oversleeping and waking up super late at 8AM lol, all zombied out, and late for work.). It’s been probably since before he was born that we were able to get a full night's sleep. He has been sleeping in his crib since 3months, but he always fell asleep on the boob or bottle and then we would put him in the crib. And at 7 months, we felt he was old enough to go through the Ferber method.

We did it for a week and ever since then, he's been sleeping through the night 10+ hours, and he just turned 9 months. It's been amazing. He eats more throughout the day, he's more energized, etc. When we put him in the crib, he knows it’s time to sleep and will do it on his own. Even during his afternoon naps. It really worked for us and our family and omg, has it been life changing. Being able to go from barely 3 hours of sleep every night to 7-8 hours has been awesome!

Some parents are blessed to have a baby who naturally sleeps through the night for hours on end but that definitely wasn’t my son, haha. This kid has a crucial fear of missing out or something. He never wanted to sleep! So we read up on the Ferber method via a quick Google search, I bought the book off Amazon and read it via my Kindle app, took a few shots of tequila and manned up and did it! It’s definitely NOT easy, by any means. It’s imperative that your entire household is aware of what’s going on and is supportive. Luckily, my husby and I were on the same page.

The first night was absolutely rough. I’m not even going to lie. My husband and I keep a log (Daily Connect app via iTunes store, also dailyconnect.com) with his parents, who care for our son, and here are a few excerpts from the Night One... This was written by my husband: “sleep training Day 1 - 3/24: This is not going to be easy. We put Liam down at 10:25pm. 3min wait and check on him, still crying. Next was a 5 min wait and check... Yup, still crying. He has not stopped screaming since the start. 10 min wait and check... and listening to him scream has us ready to give up. On the next 10 min wait and check: we went in at about 11:07pm to find he has thrown up a lot... And we gave up. We are giving him a bath now and washing his sheets. I will cuddle him to sleep. I feel ****ty.”

So yeah, the first night was ROUGH. He cried for about 45 minutes straight, no break in between. It was the silent cry, gasp for air then let out a bloodcurdling scream type of cry. It was god awful. We camped out in our bedroom, wringing our hands and watching the monitor and feeling like *******s. After 45 minutes, we walked into his room for a check only to find out he had thrown up all over himself and was just rolling around in it and OMG, we felt freakin’ AWFUL. WHAT THE F ARE WE DOING TO OUR SON! Haha. We gave him a nice warm bath, changed him, gave him extra cuddles and he fell asleep in Daddy’s arms. Night One was an utter FAIL, lol.

This was Night 3: “Did the night routine. Solid feeding. Let him hang out. Bath time. Massage with aquaphor. Read a book. Read it again. Let him flip the pages. He starts to yawn and rub his eyes. Neal gives him a 4oz bottle he drank all of. Then it's sleep time for the lil guy. Started at 10:15. As soon as we put him down in the crib, awake, he busted out crying. He's still crying 5 minutes later. But it sounds like frustration. Not like he's in pain... Doesn't seem as bad as the horrible Night One cries... Maybe I'm just saying that to make us feel better. About to go check on him now. Checked on him at 10:22.... He cried his ass off. We tried to comfort him for the maximum of 2 minutes that we were allowed. And left after that. As soon as we walked toward his bedroom door, he started crying out in pure agony. Terrified. We balled up and walked out. And even managed to shut the door behind us so it would muffle some of Liam's screams. I busied myself getting ready for bed to distract myself from Liam's screams of horror as Neal watched the monitor in worry. I got confused after I was done brushing my teeth. I heard a weird sound. Of silence. What??? I walk into the bedroom from the bathroom as Neal walks over to me with the monitor. I look at him questioningly... "do I hear..." As Neal cuts me off and tells me, "don't even say it out loud." We refuse to utter the phrase out loud, in fear that our acknowledging the silence may bring on a dreaded screaming fit. But... It won't stop me from typing it! 10:29PM... LIAM FELL ASLEEP! There is silence in the air from our son. Triumph and glee from mom and dad. Night 3... 14 minutes or crying and screaming before he fell asleep. NOT TOO SHABBY! He woke up on his own at 8am and whined a bit but still gave me some sleepy smiles and some hugs. He didn't wake up for his usual 4am feeding which was really surprising. (That feeding is hard on all of us, trying to calm him down while he cries, prepping the bottle, feeding him, tryna get him back to sleep... By that time, you're fully awake but need to go back to sleep, just for an hour at least, bc it's such an awkward time to be awake still. Then you force yourself to sleep then wake up super late and exhausted. Haha. It sucks.). And he played for a bit while we got ready to head to Lola and pop's. Good mood overall. He got a lot of sleep! 9.5hrs!”

By the end of the week, it got progressively better. He was sleeping through the night, on his own, for 10+ hours and woke up all smiles in the morning...

Life changing. All that trouble the first week was so worth it for us.

Reading Noob Mommy’s insight from her blog provided tons of support, answers to questions (the blog entry and by reading through the comments) and so much more. http://noobmommy.com/2008/11/to-ferberize-or-not-to-ferberize.html This is what we based our Ferberizing off of – a combo of stuff from her blog and from the Doctor’s book. I highly recommend for you to read her blog, even if you’re not sleep training. It’s hysterical. I’ve cried, I have laughed so hard.

But good luck, Momma. You can do it! Just stick to it. It’s so worth all the trouble and agony!

We're on week two of sleep training using The Sleep Lady's Good Night Sleep Tight as a guide. She uses "the sleep lady shuffle" which allows crying, but with reassurance. It does get better! We had a few rough nights, but it has gotten easier each day. Last night she went down with no fussing and slept until 6:45 with no waking. We decided that it was time, since we were getting less and less sleep while bed sharing (DH was sleeping on the couch most nights too). I'm so glad that we stuck with it. There were a few nights where I wanted to give up, but I kept repeating "you can do this, she needs this" and pushed through. We're all much happier this week and for the first time in a long time I have some time to myself. And letting LO cry a little won't hurt them. Good luck.

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kristenleigh0330

Thank you all for your replies. You guys have really made me feel a lot better about doing this. Thanks for being so supportive :).

I know it seems awful and I did not want to do any form of CIO but it got to the point of every time baby woke up he was still tired and he just cried and whined all day long bc he was getting zero sleep at night. I tried Ferber several times but he hated it. He would scream and hold his breath. But one week ago I decided to just do straight up CIO and he woke up twice that night, once at 10 and once at 3 and took bottles both times. He had been waking up every two hrs and had to have a bottle each time and as of the last month he would not go back to sleep for an hr or more. It was a living hell and I was a zombie and he was the whiniest baby ever. Something had to give. After that first night he woke up the next night only once and did not take a bottle and Friday and Saturday he slept all night. Sunday night and last night he woke up twice he cried for 3 minutes each time and went back to sleep. He sleeps with a pacifier and he has figured out how to find the woo in his crib and put it in and go back to sleep. DH was so mad at me for doing CIO even though he never gets up with the baby(which is why I told him to STHU or start getting up, bet you can guess how that went lol) he was amazed when he watched the baby on the video monitor wake up crying, roll around in the crib to find his woo and go back to sleep!! He also only took 30-45 minute naps he now takes 2 hrs naps and is the happiest baby ever!!!

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Melimel99

I tried it a week before she turned 6 months. She started sleeping through the night by the 3rd night and never cried/fussed more than 2 min during the training. I def recommend it

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jennab83

first let me say that you have to focus on the outcome of it all. My DS is 10mo and is sleeping through the night in his own crib without a pacifier or soother of any kind. It was not an easy road to get here though. It takes time. I know for my own child there is a big difference in they type of cries he makes. It takes a bit for his cry to switch from what I call his annoyed cry to his distress cry. At the time he couldn't stand and so I didn't go in until his distress cry. After about 2-3 days he stopped hitting that distress cry at all and eventually fell asleep.

We recently went on trip and now have some sleep regression which we expected. He is standing up and crying more at bedtime. We let him wear himself out a bit and give him time to calm himself like we know he can before stepping in. Even when we do we simply lay him back down no words, nothing.

For us the key to it working was to set up a clear structured and predictable bed time routine. We quietly play, give him a bottle, read a story then lay him down in bed. Everyday the same routine. All of which preps him for what is about to come. He handles this well and it helped in the amount of time it took for him to fall asleep.

Now I will say that this method isn't for everyone. Crying is not the point of this. A Good Sleeper is! You need to stick with it and increase the amount of time in between going in to comfort baby. The older they are the more they will resist. Time it. Even if its 1 minute less crying from the night before its progress. It was helpful for me to chart it. This made me see that more often than not me going in extended the amount of time baby cried.

But again I will say its not for everyone. This worked well for us and I would use it again in a heartbeat but I know plenty of family and friends that have great sleepers in using other methods.

I couldn't have said this better myself. I have faced a lot of drama in using this method with our DS as family was quick to judge after only hearing rumors about the Ferber method. I am happy to see parents who don't knock other method just because it is not for them! So thank you!

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Ewingl28

You can do it! Just stay strong. I know it's hard. We did it and it helped a much. Each night will get easier. It's definitely horrific for us moms but, as my pediatrician said, "baby needs to learn to self soothe. Of course they don't want to learn, they'd rather we soothed them. But, this is doing them a huge favor by helping teach them to soothe themselves. "Everyone will get more sleep. And I'm sure someday your baby will want their parents sleeping in the same bed.

We fell off the wagon when we had a trip and when she got a cold so we sleep trained again and it was MUCH easier the 2nd time around.

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